I have a Canon 1000D and it doesn't come with a focusing screen. Sometimes my camera cannot focus in low-light. I'd like to manually focus, but without a focusing screen I haven't been able to do it accurately.

How do you manually focus accurately without a focusing screen? Or is the standard solution to get a focusing screen?

No focusing screen sounds a bit weird - do you mean an old-style split-prism focusing screen? Fundamentally any SLR has a focusing screen, otherwise you couldn't use the viewfinder.
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ex-msAug 9 '10 at 21:12

Live View Zoom is a feature on the 1000D, and sounds like a good idea. I'll also check if I can use AF-Assist (Auto-Focus Assist) without popping the flash. Thanks, Everyone, for the tips.
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Mike M. LinAug 10 '10 at 22:42

After disabling the flash in the menu, I flipped the flash up and it used light to auto-focus, but didn't pop when I took the picture. It works great, and that's all I really needed, not manual focus. I also experimented with zooming in Live View, which was a little slower, but also works. Thanks.
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Mike M. LinAug 13 '10 at 20:13

I would recommend getting a focus screen, but that's not specifically going to help your manual focus efforts. My suspicion would be that camera shake, either by hand or mirror slap, is a more likely culprit for the blur. This is entirely common in low light, slow shutter situations, especially when hand-held.